(Not So) Magical Mystery Tour

July 5: At long last, we had reached the day that I think Cindy had looked forward to for many years: the day when she could introduce me to her beloved Vienna, the city where she "came of age" back in the 80s.

But first, Prague had one more special building for us to explore--the train station, one of the city's most important Art Nouveau landmarks. The original building was named the Franz Josef Station, after Franz Joseph I of Austria. From 1918 to 1938 (the First Czechoslovak Republic) and then 1945 to 1948 it was called Wilson Station, after Woodrow Wilson (strange choice...).

The Art Nouveau station was designed and built in 1901-09 by Josef Fanta, and it is still in use today, although the majority of passenger traffic goes through a later terminal building that includes an underground metro station. But here is the exterior of the Fanta terminal (borrowed from Wikipedia; we never saw that exterior in person):

We did, however, spend some time in the great hall, because the Fantova Cafe is still there and still in working order.

Yes, another stunning representative of Prague's Art Nouveau history--but we were hungry, and we needed to get something to eat before catching our train. Naturally, we completed our tour of this hall by visiting the cafe:

Even storage was considered when designing the cafe:

We finally had to say goodbye to beautiful Prague and go back downstairs to utilitarian Prague--the modern terminal with its fast food chains--to find our train.

But one more thing:

Unfortunately, I didn't take enough time to record the plaque next to the following artwork, but from the fragment of copy I can see in my photo, it seems to be a piece commissioned by the "Winton children," or more accurately, their children, in recognition of the work done by Nicholas George Winton in organizing the Czech Kindertransport, evacuating 669 children to England on the eve of WWII. These children never saw their parents again after saying goodbye at the Prague station.

After purchasing sandwiches for our lunch on the train, we boarded and found our reserved seats. We were immediately really, really grateful that we had reserved those seats, because by the time the train left the station it was packed to overflowing. The aisles of every car were full of passengers standing and sitting; the connecting intra-car areas were packed with more people crammed in. A couple of times we tried to get to the dining car to get water, but gave up because you just couldn't get through the aisles. That couldn't have been legal, but there was no effort to clear out the passageways. It seemed like the whole world was going to Vienna. I think the college students must have just arrived in Europe; the summer tourist season had just begun in earnest.

So we all stayed put, all the way from Prague to Vienna. When people got off at stops, there were generally more to take their places, so the train stayed packed. That was definitely the most uncomfortable train ride of our entire trip.

And to top it off, I started sneezing and coughing in the middle of this journey. Yep, when we got to Vienna, I tested positive for Covid...again. Dammit. This set off a flurry of tense discussions among the three of us. We were all staying in the same hotel room. Edie certainly didn't want to get Covid. I wanted even more to not give it to her. Cindy figured she was pretty safe, having recently been infected herself.

We worked out our concerns, helped by our hotel room setup, which was a long space with Edie closest to the bathroom and me closest to the window at the other end of the room. There was a window in the bathroom , and the breezes always blew from the bathroom through to my end of the room--so in essence Edie was upwind of me almost all the time. This was not an easy time, but I masked up and we managed to get used to the situation. Since we (long ago now) parted from Edie, she has not come down with Covid.

Back to the more interesting stuff. Our hotel was right at the edge of Naschmarkt, a large market where you could get just about anything, from fresh produce to clothing to souvenirs to really great restaurants. This was our view of one small section of the market:

Cindy and I went out for a walk; she wanted to show me the opera house, which was only a short walk away. On the way, we passed what became my favorite building:

This is a gallery called Secession, and it has a history that is directly tied to Gustav Klimt--but more on that later. These are my first pics of a building I kept wanting to photograph again and again. It was that appealing.

We walked as far as the famous Vienna Opera House, where Cindy spent many happy times watching operas from standing room.

And we returned to the hotel, catching sight of a number of outstanding buildings, of which I only photographed two:

We went to an excellent Greek restaurant in the Naschmarkt. The saving grace with this new round of Covid was that we could eat meals outside most of the time, easing our worries about Edie's (and everyone else's) safety.

Back to the hotel, get a cup of tea, toddle off to bed.

And the next day, we would start our grand tour of Vienna, Cindy's and Edie's old home. Stay tuned! The fun isn't over yet.